Seeing in the New Year
by Child of Insanity
Summary: Harry knows who he wants to be spending New Year's Eve with, but is the feeling returned? {SLASH} [DMHP] POST-Hogwarts


Writen for Alison's New Year's Eve challenge  
  
~Seeing In The New Year~  
  
He was beautiful in so many ways, every inch of him - and Harry would know. He was charming, and dangerous, elegant, and so *Draco.*  
  
But he was not Harry's, not anymore, and it hurt to see him.  
  
He was obviously happy, despite how out of place he seemed in such a predominately ex-Gryffindor gathering, and to Harry, that didn't seem right.  
  
He wasn't meant to be happy when Harry was so miserable. He certainly wasn't meant to be happy when it was largely his fault that he was miserable. He should at least feel *guilty.*  
  
Harry spent nearly an hour in a corner of the room, just *watching* Draco, before his former looked up at him. There was something in his eyes, something that Harry couldn't make sense of. It sent shivers running down his spine, and *something* flared up deep inside him, in response to the look on Draco's eyes. He didn't know what he was feeling - pain? desire? that dreaded feeling of love? - but Draco wasn't looking away from him, and it *hurt.*  
  
He left the room quickly, trying not to draw unwanted attention to himself, and headed for the roof of Hermione's apartment building.  
  
It was cold outside, but it was quiet, and mercifully away from Draco and that *look.*  
  
It didn't seem fair, somehow, that Draco should be able to look at him like that, yet had been the one to walk out, to end the relationship that had taken so much time, and work, for them to begin.  
  
It just felt so *wrong* to not be with Draco. Their relationship had begun during the war with Voldemort, when they'd needed to get along. It had progressed quickly, and they had leant heavily on each other.  
  
Harry had never expected the relationship to end, just because they no longer depended so heavily on each other. He'd always thought that when the war was over, they would continue to be together, and that it would be *better* because they wouldn't have all the worries that had plagued them during it.  
  
Apparently Draco hadn't thought the same thing.  
  
"What are you doing up here, Harry?"  
  
Harry whirled, surprised. He hadn't heard Hermione's footsteps - had been far too deep with in his thoughts to do so - and her sudden appearance behind him made him jump.  
  
Fixing a smile onto his face with practiced ease, he replied. "Seeing the New Year in, what else?"  
  
Hermione cast a disapproving frown on him. "Alone? Stop brooding, Harry, and come inside with the rest of us."  
  
He wanted to tell her that he wasn't alone, that he had his memories to keep him company, but knew that she wouldn't approve. It wouldn't matter to her that memories sometimes seemed the only thing that he had left of what, for him, had been a better time. She would be annoyed, perhaps even hurt, and while he didn't want to join the party going on inside, he didn't want to hurt the woman who had been his best friend since he was eleven.  
  
She rested a hand on his arm gently - always gently, as if he were a frightened animal - and began to lead him inside. "Everybody's been wondering where you were. It's almost midnight."  
  
Midnight. The witching hour. Play time of the spirits of the dead. Perhaps Sirius would visit them tonight, or Ron, killed three months ago in front of his very eyes. The witching hour, when scars ran deep, and painful memories freely.  
  
He should be remembering the friends he had lost in the war, not the lover who had walked out on him when it was all finally - painfully - over, and he was no longer needed.  
  
The lights were bright, and the music loud when he got inside, and his friends were talking, dancing, drinking - in Seamus' case, singing - happily, and why shouldn't they. After so much pain, they deserved a little happiness.  
  
He didn't know how to be happy anymore. The war had seen to that. It had left scars - physical, and emotional - that would never fade. It's mark imprinted on him in blood and tears.  
  
He saw Draco across the room, speaking with Cho Chang - when had she arrived? - a glass of something fizzy in his hand. He looked away quickly, trying to lose himself in the bright lights of the room.  
  
No sooner had he turned away from Draco, then Seamus pulled him away from Hermione, still singing, and whirled him around the room in a mad dance that left his head spinning. His smile was wide and cheerful, but his eyes, when Harry met them with his own, told a different story. He didn't - couldn't - understand how Seamus could pretend to be so cheerful, when in reality he was far from it.  
  
They all had different ways of dealing with the pain. Harry's had once involved curling up in the arms of his lover, now he, as Hermione so eloquently put it, brooded.  
  
To each his own.  
  
He took a seat in a corner of the room, and watched his friends, and the clock. Ten minutes until midnight.  
  
Seamus had managed to corner Zachariah Smith - funny that someone who had once held Harry in such disregard would become friends with him - and was now spinning him around the room, the two of them laughing as they did so. The darkness in Seamus' eyes had faded slightly.  
  
Five minutes left. There was Ginny, sipping champagne - where had that come from? - resting casually in the arms of Oliver Wood. Five years her senior, Ron had had a fit when the two of them had started dating, but had calmed down when Hermione had pointed out how much Oliver obviously meant to Ginny. Oliver was far better than some of the other's that Ginny had been with.  
  
She was beautiful, Harry realised, feeling guilty that it had taken him so long to see that. He could have loved her once, if so much hadn't stood in his way.  
  
But there was - had been - someone else for him. There no longer was. They weren't meant to be.  
  
He had heard somewhere that the person you kissed on the stroke of midnight, would be the one that you spent the next year with. He would be alone.  
  
Two minutes until midnight, and everyone was getting in position for the countdown.  
  
Hermione was making her way over to him, and he deliberately turned his head. He loved her dearly - as friends do - but she was not who he wanted beside him as the New Year began.  
  
One minute. All of the gazes in the room were firmly fixed on the clock, watching as the last seconds of the year slowly ticked by. Soon the countdown would begin. A countdown to a new year, a new beginning, free from the war that they had fought - and somehow survived - for most of the past year.  
  
Ten...  
  
Ginny twisted in Oliver's arms, and he smiled down at her. They would see the next year through, together.  
  
Nine...  
  
He would be alone. The past three months would have nothing on the torment that a year would bring him.  
  
Eight...  
  
Seamus was plastered. Off his face drunk. Hanging off Zachariah's arm, and counting the loudest of them all.  
  
Seven...  
  
Hermione, perceptive as always, had changed her course to him, and was standing with Cho, her counting barely noticeable amongst the other louder voices.  
  
Six...  
  
Seamus had apparently decided that waiting the last five seconds was too long. His arms had made their way around Zachariah's waist, and he was kissing him with passionate, if rather drunk, abandon. The rule to kissing on the stroke of midnight must only work in some cases, because Harry couldn't see Seamus spending a whole year with *anyone.*  
  
Five...  
  
He jumped as arms wrapped around his waist, counting momentarily forgotten. The sense of familiarity that the touch brought had him leaning into their warmth before he even had a chance to think about it.  
  
Four...  
  
Of course, that didn't mean that he didn't want to know who it was, and he twisted around to find out.  
  
Three...  
  
His mind was playing tricks on him because he was *not* in Draco's arms, and Draco was not leaning down to kiss him.  
  
Two...  
  
Draco tasted like he always had, and Harry was feeling slightly overwhelmed. People didn't just walk out on people, then decide to suddenly kiss them on New Year's Eve.  
  
One...  
  
The next year. He'd be spending the next year with Draco Malfoy.  
  
HAPPY NEW YEAR!  
  
He pulled away from the kiss as his friends sent sparks from their wands, cheering the new year in. He didn't join in, too busy studying Draco's face, and trying to work out how he had wound up in his arms.  
  
Draco, seeming to guess what he was thinking, shrugged.  
  
"I was an idiot. Sorry."  
  
Harry couldn't help but wonder why it was so easy for him to accept that, but decided that it wasn't worth dwelling over. He had Draco back, and that was all that mattered.  
  
Wasn't it?  
  
*  
  
*All characters belong to J.K.Rowling* 


End file.
